Agenda item

Officer: Maureen Floyd

Key decision: no

The Leader of the Council delegated to the Cabinet the power to make the decisions set out below.

RESOLVED to note the CSCB Annual Report for 2017/18 which sets out

• The work undertaken by the CSCB to secure improvement following the Ofsted review published in August 2017
• Progress relating to the priorities of the CSCB
• Key issues and challenges around safeguarding children & young people in Croydon

The Independent Chair of the Croydon Safeguarding Children Board gave a presentation informing Members that it was a statutory requirement to write an annual report which evaluated the effectiveness of safeguarding in the borough. It was noted that the annual report covered the six months leading up to the 2017 Ofsted inspection and the six months following the inspection.

The Independent Chair stated that there had improvements to partnership working since the inspection and that the annual report was owned by the partnership.

Members were informed of the progress that had been made since the inspection which included ensuring the Board was closely aligned to the council’s improvement plan and partners were actively engaged in the improvement journey. Progress had also been about making tangible improvements with work on vulnerable adolescents being a key piece of work. This had been a comprehensive piece of work that had begun attracting a lot of interest and was considered a leading piece of work in this area, and was vital to addressing the key issues experienced in Croydon.

A further key area of work had been neglect and a new system had been introduced to ensure the issue of neglect was considered whenever safeguarding was a concern.

The Independent Chair stressed that the voice of the child was integral to work on safeguarding to ensure the voice was listened to and was acted upon.

Whilst improvements had been made to the Board, the Independent Chair informed Members that further improvements were planned, and that it was essential for the Board to maintain an alignment to the council’s improvement plan and develop better multi-agency partnership through data sharing and audit arrangements. As such, work would continue to ensure all partners felt that they owned and were working towards all improvements.

It was noted that the statutory arrangements for the Board were changing which required three safeguarding partners to develop new proposals by June 2019; however the Independent Chair stated her commitment to ensuring that there was no loss of pace or commitments by partners during the transition period.

The Cabinet Member for Children, Young People & Learning thanked the Independent Chair for her work and for ensuring the development of a partnership mentality and commitment to working for all young people in the borough. The Cabinet Member further noted the strong thematic work that had been undertaken that had gained national coverage; including the work on vulnerable adolescents, neglect and supporting young people with disabilities. It was recognised by Members that it was a complex situation in Croydon as it was the borough with the largest number of young people in London and there was a very large cohort of unaccompanied asylum seekers in the borough also.

Members noted the increased engagement and buy-in from partners; however stressed the need to ensure that lessons were learnt from serious case reviews to ensure the situation did not happen again. Furthermore it was stated that it was critical to ensure the outcomes of thematic work, such as the work on vulnerable adolescents, were fed into policies going forward and were published so as to share best practice nationally.

The Independent Chair informed Members that two serious case reviews were being considered by the Board as part of the vulnerable adolescents review and work had been completed on one review and the findings from the second case would be shared with the Board in December 2018. Following the completion of the review the findings would be shared.

The Cabinet Member for Families, Health & Social Care commended the work of the Board and stated that the best practice work would be fed into the Adult Safeguarding Board as there were a number of areas of cross-over and it was important to recognise that residents may transition into adult safeguarding.

In response to Member questions, the Cabinet Member stated that on the occasions she was unable to attend Board meetings, due to attending other meetings, her Deputy Cabinet Member attended and fed back to her.

Members thanked the Independent Chair for her work with the Board and the annual report.

The Leader of the Council delegated to the Cabinet the power to make the decisions set out below.

RESOLVED to note the CSCB Annual Report for 2017/18 which sets out

• The work undertaken by the CSCB to secure improvement following the Ofsted review published in August 2017
• Progress relating to the priorities of the CSCB
• Key issues and challenges around safeguarding children & young people in Croydon